NINE YEARS FOR BOY WHO STOLE 5 PIECES OF BREAD.

With Mubarak possibly about to walk free – there are statements on Twitter suggesting that an eleven year old Coptic child may have just received a nine year prison sentence for stealing five pieces of bread. I’ll try to verify this shortly. In the meantime you know anything please make a comment.

If it’s true then it’s difficult to find any historical precedent. In Dickensian England the courts sentenced children to anything between two weeks and three months hard labour for bread theft. But nine years ! That’s almost twice as long as the initial sentence for stealing bread handed out to “prisoner 24601” in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” –